Turn your head to one side, looking to your right (or left) in line with your shoulder, then take the pill as you normally would while you stay in that position. It will slide down much more easily than if you were facing forward.
LPT: Fill your mouth with water, hold your head back and open mouth. drop the pill in. close mouth and swallow the water.
you wont even feel the pill.
by throwing the pill into the water already in your mouth instead of putting itin your mouth and then drinking the water, the pill wont have a chance to stick to your tongue or gums and release its bitter/nasty taste.
Put pill in mouth, swallow pill. People hate this one weird trick!
I don’t like to do it, but sometimes I gotta take a pill and have no beverage.
Yeah! This is it. The amount of people who just put the pill in their mouth and THEN drink water surprises me. Every time I’ve done that with a specific type of pill, it would leave some extremely bitter powder on my tongue! Easily avoidable by putting water in first.
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I misheard my mom and started putting them under my tongue as a kid then using the water to swish it down. Works relatively well
I feel like putting the pills in your mouth first works a bit better when you have a bunch of pills to take. I take four pills every morning (ADHD, antidepressant, allergy pill, and L-methylfolate because of dumb genes) and I’ve tried both ways. The pills-first approach is just faster and easier for me, and I don’t mind the taste. Hell, I weirdly like the taste of my ADHD meds 😅 I will absolutely do the water first thing when taking something disgusting though. I tend to close my mouth and tilt my head forward rather than back, however.
I don’t know why my client posted this comment 4 times… Sorry about that.
Lol. I hear ya, but I have taken like 6 pills at once using the water first method. That’s fair, to each their own!
No. Mouth full of drink as if going to gargle. Tilt head back, open mouth, drop in pill(s), IMMEDIATELY swallow, AND chase with more drink.
Dear god, its like some people want to taste our crimes against nature.
Tilting your head down can actually help with swallowing by a lot.
Insert pill. Put liquid in mouth. Tilt chin down. Swallow.
Source: have dysphagia, can only swallow pills and other hard substances by tilting head down
It varies a lot from person to person. The only way I was able to learn to swallow pills at first was to deliberately swallow air, like you do if you want to make yourself burp. Head forward? Head back? Both interfered.
some pills have nasty taste if they touch your gums or mouth. fill in water first, then pill, then swallow.
Guess that just didn’t bother me, but yeah, which you do first didn’t make a difference in terms of swallowing. It’s all about tilting the chin down to open the throat.
At least close your mouth first, unless you like spilling drink+pills everywhere.
Pretty sure tilting the head down is implied in my personal swallowing process. I’m not sure I can actually swallow anything with my chin up.
Tilt head back, open mouth, drop in pill(s), IMMEDIATELY swallow
Definitely not implied. I thought your entire point was keeping the head tilted back.
Good for you. Only reason to tilt the head back is to not spill. Closing the mouth fixes that. This is “pill taking recommendations”, not “re-thinking swallowing-in-general 101”
They’re talking about a way to prevent aspiration with dysphagia by tilting the chin down to the chest.
This…works less well with kids.
I’ve been taking 6+ pills a day for years and still can’t get myself to swallow them. I just chew everything. Tasty painkillers and caffeine.
BTDT. Time-release is too useful though.
My only time-release capsule is filled with little beads, I just pop it open and eat the beads like pop rocks
O_O
(゜o゜;
I am intensely displeased with this comment. I don’t know why this got to me so much more than the other degenerate shit I’ve seen around, but this gave me a pretty violent physical reaction. Maybe it’s because I’ve been taking time release capsule meds for 15ish years now? Whatever the cause, you should be proud because that was well written.
I’m speaking my truth. XR Adderall, crack em open and pour em on me tongue. The caviar of stimulants
And these goddamn pharma companies putting binders and shit in so you can’t medically boof em.
Someone already said it, but tilting your chin down opens your throat, while tilting your head back will constrict
Tucking your chin down while swallowing pills is best
… and I already replied to them. Enjoy spilling drink and pills everywhere.
What exactly are you imagining?
They are trying to be funny by playing on the fact that the person they are replying to didn’t include closing their mouth in the list of steps.
thank you
People that are capable of realizing I didn’t narrate the entire process of swallowing. IDK, if you’re imagining I would even put into words specific movements of the tongue, lips, jaw, etc, you’re opinion of my instructional skills is way off.
The only pill you need to swallow is the truth
Sure. Fuck sincerity, fuck honest advice. This guy didn’t specify exactly how one should swallow, so he’s a lying liar! You got me!
Also many pills (especially capsules, where the coating and filling are separate vs tablets that are compressed as one) float, so counterintuitively, tilting your head forward actually brings the capsule up to the back of your throat!
damn, you beat me to it. can confirm, it works like a charm
Does this work on human children, or just cats?
I don’t think it works on cats :(
You throw it in their mouths and rub under the lower mandible until it goes down. It’s not too hard, assuming your cat isn’t an asshole.
That’s a mighty big assumption
Was going to say the same thing.
Im one of the lucky few where my cat just eats pills out of my hand like a treat. He is not smart enough to know the difference.
a lot of you here missed the point that this was how to get KIDS to swallow the pills. not you.
Same thing
My cat is the best in that regard: either he eats the pills straight or off my hand or I put it on the floor and put his favorite creamy treat on top
lucky you, my dog isn’t like that. i either have to trick him with cheese or shove it down his throat and hold his mouth closed until he swallows.
I just slip it in the corner of his mouth, right on top of his tongue. Then I give him his favorite treat, kibble fresh out of the bowl.
can’t even get my adult partner to take pills normally. It’s soo ridiculous the hoops a person would go through to avoid a slight bitter taste.
It may depend quite a bit on the pill. As an adult I can easily dry swallow things like ibuprofen. But I’m not sure about something like oral steroids.
I was prescribed them as a kid due to a particularly bad poison ivy reaction. I couldn’t swallow pills at the time, so after running through all the tricks to teach someone, we ended up grinding them up and sticking them in ice cream. It was something like 15 years before I could eat cookies and cream again without tasting steroids. Grinding them definitely exacerbated the problem, but I’m not sure how I’d fare if prescribed the same pills again.
Yeah it’s wild how adding some pills to strawberry yogurt just makes for really really fucking bitter yogurt.
Yeah I learned how to dry swallow after almost that same incident cause I wasn’t ruining food I liked anymore
For me it’s the size. Can not really trick my body to just swallow. „But that’s huge! We have to chomp on it to break it down! Trying to kill yourself by choking?“
For normal pills I don’t even need water for pills. I just swallow. My partner always makes me drink it afterward cause you are supposed to.
But those monster size ones! I’m like wtf why not make it 2 smaller one jerks!If they’re the hard pills, you can just cut them in half or even quarters if they’re big enough.
Should I schedule my press conference?
This is not always true. Some tablets are extended release and if you break them apart the timing is thrown off. You get a higher dose initially, and the dose doesn’t last the intended period.
A family friend learned this the hard way when they were breaking a seizure preventive tablet in half to make it easier to swallow; they’d often have a recurrent seizure about an hour or two before their next dose time.
Maybe I’m making a bad assumption that it was made that big for a reason. It’s probably money…
Depends on the type of pill. Something easily desolvable like melatonin will dissolve in my throat of I don’t take it with water.
Now that’s a bitter taste that comes back up
Oh wow. Makes sense.
Drop your neck to your chest, it opens up your throat and makes putting things down your throat much easier
It’s soo ridiculous the hoops a person would go through to avoid a slight bitter taste.
I figured out a fix for the avoidance of horrible tasting medicine:
The simplest and easiest way to use it is with an ice cube or two. Get the pill/liquid medicine you have to get down your throat ready, your ice cubes, a cup of water and stand in front of a sink. Put the ice in your mouth and let it sit on your tongue for 15 to 60 seconds. Yes, its going to be cold and slightly uncomfortable. The longer you can stand it the better your result. After this time has passed with the ice in your mouth your tongue will be numb. Spit out the ice in the sink, you’ll have 5-15 seconds where you can’t taste a goddamn thing which is plenty of time. At this point you could put the most disgusting flavored thing (sour, bitter, etc) and you won’t be able to taste it. Quickly get the medicine in your mouth and chug that full glass of water. Taste will start to return within about 3 or 5 seconds of chugging water, so make sure you drink enough to clear your mouth of whatever bad flavor you’re trying to avoid.
This whole process adds perhaps 2 minutes tops to taking medicine. For those that have difficulty this is a tiny fraction of time usually spent avoiding taking it, or the recovery process for taking it normally.
If you need more incentive (especially for kids) instead of using ice cubes and spitting that out. You can use ice cream or milk shakes and just swallow those. Same rules apply: put the ice cream in your mouth and let it sit on your tongue as long as its frozen. Its a little more involved than ice cubes because you might have to have two or three spoonfuls to get your tongue numb.
An Interesting strategy. I will see if your idea works better. Cause putting it In pudding does not work.
My partner opens mouth wide almost dislocating jaw and carefully puts pill at back of mouth and then immediately drinks something favored to wash off taste. Its like the conehead dentist scene wide. I’m scared choking is going to happen eventually.
I’m a 34 y/o man and I need tricks to swallow pills. It has nothing to do with taste at all, it’s about capability. I actually have a condition that makes it difficult to swallow.
It’s literally just taste for my partner.
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I know there is a reason for it to exist but I don’t like the idea/concept of a beverage thickener…
Pre-thickened water isn’t any less of a distrubing concept. “Here. Drink this water, it’s the same consistency of saliva.”
Then there’s the people that can’t have anything thinner than jello. I shuddered the first time I watched someone chew water
My trick is to tap my upper and lower teeth together to poorly simulate chewing (avoiding the pill, of course) and then I’d just naturally feel the urge to swallow.
Aight, lots of discussion on tricks here - adding one to the pile.
Use food.
Especially fibery food that still has some texture when you chew it up, vs something like a banana that just chews down to a liquid anyway.
Think like Triscuits or something.
Anywho, add food of choice to your face. Chew it up until you’re ready to swallow- but don’t swallow. Grab your pill, and shove it right into the middle of your mass of Triscuit paste. Then swallow.
The mass of food will just push the pill right along with it - you’ll barely even notice it’s there.
People struggle with liquids because they just wash around the pill without pushing it.
Food is king for pill taking.
your mass of Triscuit paste
Thanks for ruining Triscuits for me.
Apple sauce or ice cream work well
Yeah I would probably start there instead of triscuit paste but, hey, everyone has their own style!
I used to take my cat to an old country horse vet. On one visit she had to get a pill of some sort and I told the vet that my cat hated pills and it wouldn’t be possible to get one down her throat. He said “son, I’ve been a vet for over 50 years and I’ve never had a cat that I couldn’t pill.” He couldn’t get the pill down her throat and had to give her a shot instead. I’ve never been so proud. RIP Martha, miss you girl.
Sometimes vets never listen, even though you told them exactly how your pet will behave.
I’m surprised by the amount of people in this thread having trouble taking pills. It’s not really something I’ve ever thought about or heard other people struggle with but hey there it is
It took me a long time to get over it. I’m still not the best at taking pills.
I suspect some people just naturally have a harder time than others with it.
I’m normally fine but something about the shape and texture of the standard ibuprofen tablet just sticks to my throat, or at least feels like it’s sticking to my throat.
Am I the only one who hates jokes where the entire setup is “These kids I chose to have sure are a pain in the ass!”
Sure are.
I feel like “chose to have” is a bit strong when “chose not to abort” might be more accurate…
Full blown Kermit freakout in that last panel!
when i was in icu for 10 weeks, i learned this trick:
put the whole load of pills in your mouth, no water needed. then swallow them.
i dont know how i do it, i dont know why i couldnt do it before, i dont know how to explain it.
but i definitly can swallow half a handfull of pills just like that.
i learned it because that whole routine with glass of water and one pill at a time just was a PITA, when you are in icu for a good reason.
Why would you do one pill at a time? Just put em all in and wash the pills down with a glass of water.
I can’t swallow pills without water. They get stuck in the back of my throat.
Yep. I learned I can swallow about 20 pills in one gulp of water. Sorry for all you folks out there that say you can’t swallow pills, it’s a psychological issue.
It is, but I ain’t gonna argue with my brain.
Yeah I had it when I was a kid. For whatever reason my brain just wouldn’t allow it to happen and my tongue would grab the pill before I could swallow it. It cause a lot of problems. I don’t know what happened and I can’t even remember when it happened but one day it was just gone and I’ve never had an issue swallowing pills since.
it was a trick learned out of nescessity ;-)
yeah, I think it worked because they gave me lots of fluids anyway, I never had a dry mouth or sore throat.
